Relatively small retail articles are generally shipped to stores in shipping containers which are unloaded and then discarded. The articles after being removed are then stocked on the shelves. Some items, instead of being individually stocked, are set out in special display cartons to attract attention to the products. Although display cartons add to the cost of merchandising, they have been found to be effective sales tools for certain types of articles and worth the extra packaging expense. The cost of shipping the display packages is increased substantially, however, by the containers in which they are sent. Such containers are usually formed of thick corrugated board, and can be quite expensive.
It would be desirable from the standpoint of cost and effective handling procedures to be able to ship such products in the same carton in which they will be displayed. This would under normal conditions be a difficult design problem since the carton would have to be strong enough to withstand the stresses of shipping and yet be versatile and attractive enough to function as a display carton. Complicating the problem, however, is the fact that many of the items best sold through a display package are contained in wrap-around cartons. These are cartons formed by high speed packaging machines which wrap carton blanks around prearranged groups of articles traveling through the machine. Because the relatively thin paperboard commonly used for this purpose and the high forming speed of the machine would normally be thought to dictate against it, the use of a wrap-around carton as a cost-effective combination shipping and display carton has heretofore not been practical.